Plan Of The Agora (Market- Place) In Athens In The Hellenistic Period. The Square had been cleared early in the sixth century,
then supplied with public buildings along its west side, behind which there later stood the temple of Hephaestus. Among the early
buildings are the Royal Stoa, office of the royal archon (archon basileus) who saw to religious matters. There was also a council
house (bouleuterion), archive (in the metroon), and magistrate's club house {tholos), shown here in their Classical form. The
Painted Stoa at the north held the early Classical paintings of Polygnotus and Micon. Across the square ran the Panathenaic Way
which passed from a city gate (Dipylon Gate) to the Acropolis. At the south are sixth-century fountain houses and the state mint. The
stoae-shops and offices-which close the square are comparatively late additions, the Stoa of Attalus, a gift of the Pergamene king,
being now rebuilt to serve as museum and workrooms for the Agora excavations.
Plato's Athens is an ideal vision which reflects reality as much as the naked figures of the Parthenon reflect the pock-marked and
poorly dressed peasants who stared up at them; yet we need to know the ideals which a society sets for itself. Attic comedy for its
own purposes seized on certain aspects of daily life, to exaggerate them for comic effect; yet once again we may wonder whether the
obscenities and the constant references to bodily functions are typical of a society which kept its women in strict seclusion, rather